UPDATE: Obama reacts: he's "surprised and deeply humbled." "To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformational figures who have been honored by this prize." "I will accept this award as a call to action." Though he stopped short of turning it down, the subtext -- that he hasn't yet accomplished enough to deserve this -- was clear. President Obama, you handled this awkward moment well.

Hey, it's their prize. If the Nobel Committee says he deserves it, he deserves it.

That might be strictly true in some narrow ontological sense, but it's not Obama's job to affirm the validity of Nobel prizes. He should do whatever's politically smart. Though you're right, of course, that turning it down would have a downside in, as Kaus said, dissing the Nobel Committee, it'd be worth it to show courage/humility and mitigate the current embarrassment.

"I am very honored. I hold the Nobel prize in the highest esteem and I am strengthened in my resolve to know I have the Committee's support; but there are so many more deserving people in this world than I, people who have a hard time being heard and people we should listen to; so I respectfully decline this prize."

If it isn't his job to affirm the validity of the prize, it isn't his job to deny the validity of the prize.

If he wants to demonstrate his courage/humility, he should find ways to stand up, on principle, to his own party. Or to his wife. Or to all the other people who've been telling him his whole life just how great he is when he's never really accomplished anything to deserve it.

He still has to go and give a speech, then do something with the money. There will be many more awkward situations to follow. And he has accepted them rather than deal with the slight awkwardness of turning down the prize.

He handled the moment fairly well, he certainly could have done worse (despite his typical misuse of the word "humbled"--he wasn't humbled), but he should have turned it down for the same reason Jimmy Carter should have turned it down.

Obama was given that award as a slap in the face to the United States government, it's political system, half its people and a former president.

He should turn it down not because he is the protector of the Nobel label, but because he is the leader of the country being insulted by the awards committee.

I think he accepted it rather than disrespecting the Nobel Committee but still sending the message that it wasn't appropriate for him to receive it in the first place (which wasn't his choice). While turning it down would been a more forceful way to make this point, he still made the point.

Jason, I think you're being a little hard on JAC. This is really small beer. Accepting the award doesn't take much of his time and doesn't (need to) interfere with his duties as president.

It's symbolic and while the best follow up symbol would have been to decline it, Obama did the next best thing by acknowledging the validity of the complaints while not further embarrassing the Swedes (however much they may have embarrassed themselves).

If JAC had won the Nobel Peace Prize and given a statement similar to Obama's I would have been fine with it. But Obama is President of the United States of America, he's supposed to be a political animal, not have the same responses as someone off the street.

If I'm a little hard with you guys it's because I think you should hold our politicians to higher standards. Especially ones who want to keep us from making our own decisions and make them for us themselves.

He could give the money to any of these people who did not win the Nobel Peace Prize, though they were under consideration:

Chinese Human Rights Activist Hu Jia - imprisoned for campaigning for human rights in the PRC, not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.

Wei Jingsheng, who spent 17 years in Chinese prisons for urging reforms of China's communist system. -- not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama. (Not to mention the symbolic value of awarding a Chinese dissident on the 20th Anniversary of the Tianenmen Square Massacre.)

Greg Mortenson, founder of the Central Asia Institute has built nearly 80 schools, especially for girls, in remote areas of northern Pakistan and Afghanistan over the past 15 years - not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.

Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, a philosophy professor in Jordan who risks his life by advocating interfaith dialogue between Jews and Muslims, also not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.

Afghan human rights activist Sima Samar. She currently leads the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and serves as the U.N. special envoy to Darfur and is apparently also not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.

Unfortunately, he'll give the money to some "charity" like ACORN. Mark my words.

MathMom, I don't think he can give the money to anyone, the US government is going to get it. And no matter what he does with his time, it wont garner the same attention for whoever he gives it to as if they had won the Nobel Peace Prize.

If Obama had rejected the Nobel it would have shown he was worthy to receive it. He missed the opportunity of a lifetime. Instead of being noble, he has shown himself to be ordinary.

Johny :I seriously doubt that John McCain would've been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize had he been elected; he never had the message.

Don't forget, McCain was portrayed as the same as Bush, so of course he wouldn't have gotten it under this theory.

Look at who else got the Nobel during Bush's time in office: Al Gore and Jimmy Carter. It does look like the committee was trying to send anti-Bush sentiments through its choices. Maybe Bush is responsible for all three of these people getting the award. It would be ironic if true.

(1) "The White House" sent an email referring to Obama in the third person, describing conversations Obama recently had with other world leaders, and mentioning that he thanked them for congratulating him on the prize.

(2) A similar email describing a phone call with another world leader, mentioning that he thanked the leader for the congratulations on the prize.

It's not clear who sent either of these emails, or to whom. (To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, I didn't know White Houses could send emails.)

(3) There's an email that the reporter jokingly refers to as being from Obama himself, sent to that reporter on the morning the prize was announced. I say jokingly because he puts "Barack Obama" in scare quotes and mentions that Obama's email address is "info@barackobama.com," which is obviously the email address of a website administrator, not the president. Though it's addressed to "Toby" (the reporter), it's obviously not a personal message, but a form email intended to give reporters a quotable response to the news that everyone was talking about that morning.

I hesitated to criticize the piece because it's so weak I almost thought it was a poorly executed joke ... but his tone seems pretty serious. I'm actually heartened: if people have to strain so much to come up with criticisms of Obama, he can't be that bad.